Busy or Bored? Three Tips for Whichever Mode You’re In

In these unprecedented times businesses and employees are challenged with new ways of interoperating, revenue and cash flow instability, personal and world health concerns, job loss, furlough, the list goes on. When I speak to colleagues and friends, with whom I’m checking in more than ever, they seem to fall into two camps – busy or bored. Those in the busy camp are working more than ever, killing themselves to stay necessary/employed and are secretly envious of those in the bored camp. Those on the bored front are struggling to stay productive, desperately wanting to be engaged in something and are tired of hearing the busy people complain about how much work they have on their hands.

While these two groups are stuck at opposite ends of the spectrum they can leverage the same tools and tricks to cope and thrive in their current work environment.

Stay Organized – use whichever tool appeals most to you. I’m a fan of handwritten To Do Lists. I get a lot of satisfaction out of crossing things off. I categorize mine by Work, Personal, Family so I can cover the actual work I do to get paid, the things I want to do for myself and the things I need to do to keep our household running. There’s no shortage of task management apps out there if you’re not a paper person. I’m a fan of Asana and the notes app on my phone.

Prioritize – as someone who lives in the efficiency and productivity space, prioritization is the most basic of concepts but it’s also one that many people struggle with. If you’re among the bored you may want to do everything from finding a job to redoing your closet to attending online learning courses. Those are all great pursuits, but which one requires your immediate attention? The fastest and easiest way to prioritize is to tie your to do’s to your goals and needs and work from there.

Master Your Attitude – when things are not going as expected it’s natural to get negative. Staying in a negative headspace will inevitably take you off track whether your goal is to hold on to your job or pick up your next gig. Doses of positivity and optimism can go a long way to help keep you going through the chaos and the unknown. Even if you naturally skew more on the pessimistic side of things, fake it. Even the slightest lean into the positive can be a key to unlocking what’s next for you.

Questions on incorporating these tips into your day-to-day? Contact me!

Defining Holistic Goals & Objectives for Your Business

Personal resolutions are the focal point of the new year. For businesses, the first quarter of the new year is a great time for goal setting—creating objectives that are measurable, actionable, and will drive forward motion.

Companies that successfully attain their goals break them down into manageable chunks that, once completed, can be checked off and used to support the next step.

So how do you know if you’re ready to move onto the next step?

The key is to use a reasonable measurement. For example, having a general goal of increasing sales and closing more business is too vague and not specific enough. By adding a measure to a goal, it immediately becomes actionable. With specificity and measurability, your goal is transformed into something like increase sales by 10% and add 2 new accounts to the book of business that will generate X dollars in revenue.

Establishing metrics naturally progresses into the conversation of how a goal can be achieved. For example, you can increase sales in a variety of ways. Do you want to hire 10 more salespeople who increase total sales by 1% each? Probably not. While you’d meet your sales objective, you’d likely undo any staffing objectives at the same time. It is imperative that goals and objectives do not undermine each other. 

Goals and objectives need to be set in a holistic way across the business so that there are no direct conflicts—and this vision must be coordinated at the top of the company. 

I help business leaders capture a panoramic view of their company so that goals and objectives are productively developed and rolled out. A business that stands still will not survive competition; refreshed targets will propel forward momentum and support business growth.  

Contact me today to get started planning your new year’s goals and objectives!

Where Business Leaders Get Stuck & How to Progress Onward

There's an old adage that says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This well-known phrase is poorly applied to business. What should a business owner do if the “it” is not broken per se, but merely status quo? 

Many small businesses can get stuck in old patterns that—at one point—were keys to success. While the initial game plan may have resulted in achieved goals, it may no longer lead to growth. Despite this, business owners struggle to embrace and implement new formulas. 

For example, I worked with a very efficient team at a small company. As the company personnel grew and the business scaled, productivity within the group did not grow at the same rate—clients were no longer interested in working with them. 

This was largely due to the fact that the manager (who was once a rock star) had turned into a bottleneck. When the team was small, she was able to be very hands-on—but that model was no longer viable once the business started to grow and volume increased. 

What is Holding You Back? 

I find that business owners often are hesitant to make a change due to their: 

(a) egos (“What do you mean I can’t do it all?”); and

(b) superstitions (“I don’t want to change the formula that made us successful in the first place”). 

Business leaders must take a moment to regularly evaluate the needs of the business. This starts with an honest conversation about issues that need to be addressed and problems that need to be solved. 

When working with any company, I almost always act as a feedback collector. By speaking with stakeholders or using anonymous surveys, I glean important information and can pinpoint trouble spots. If possible, I support the need for examination of these areas with objective data as well. 

With comprehensive information about the company’s needs and a collaborative approach, I team up with the business leader—linking the recommendations to his or her foundational goal of helping the company succeed. 

Business leaders are more receptive to adaptation and change when he or she feels ownership over the changes—and this is where I can help! 

Contact me today to talk about the needs of your business and which tasks I can take off your plate so you can focus on the big picture! 

Simplicity is the Key to Business Productivity

Businesses can always benefit from simple ideas that result in increased productivity. This is particularly true in a startup environment where a vast amount of work needs to be accomplished in a very short time frame.

Usually, as a result of this scramble, there are a lot of people working in an unstructured way at an extremely fast pace. Yet without process, efficiency is lacking and their efforts can be futile—this is where I come in!

Most of my first-time clients are businesses who realize that there is a lack of coordination across a specific team. For example, I worked closely with a tech startup that was rapidly expanding its marketing efforts. Their way of executing had each team member working on a separate initiative, with no oversight and no correlated timeline. 

From this baseline, I was able to take all of the individual pieces and roll it into a comprehensive roadmap—a higher level framework—for the team to execute in a cohesive way. 

In my practice, I add value to businesses by addressing process issues (and more!) with practical, useful, and implementable strategies such as:  

• Checkpoint Meetings

Unlike large corporations which can be meeting-heavy, startups are generally not. It’s important to find a good balance—we add structure, but not so much it becomes oppressive. 

With startups, I leverage 15 minutes “stand up style” weekly conversations to highlight where there might be roadblocks, dependencies, and room for improvement. At the end of the week, we’ll hold a more comprehensive 30-minute meeting to determine if the week’s goals have been met. By giving up a lean 45 minutes a week for checkpoint meetings we can easily establish goals and gauge progress toward achieving them.

• Meeting Notes

When working closely with a company, I seek out ways to increase productivity. Unique to each company, I teach tips and tricks that are easily applicable and infused in day-to-day work life. I’m often asked what tools I use to stay organized. I leverage a mix of technology and good old pen and paper to track what’s happening in meetings. There have been numerous times throughout my career where my notes have saved the day by capturing pertinent details or commitments that are integral to progress. In an age where everything is texted or slacked, I still find value in being a little old school.

My perspective as a company outsider with a fresh view allows me to craft custom strategies for each of my clients. 

Do you want to increase efficiency and productivity? If so, contact me today! 

Why Hire a Consultant?

Many employers struggle with the idea of hiring a consultant. Especially when a business is in cost cutting mode or looking secure assets to fund growth. Why pay an outside consultant when you are already paying your employees to meet the company’s goals?

As a former corporate employee, I understand the team angst brought on by the arrival of a consultant. “Why does so and so get $200 an hour when I only get $100 for the same job?” “Why does he get to make his own hours and I don’t?” “Oh, THEY’RE the expert? I thought I was the expert?” Those are the collective thoughts that can crop up when a consultant is brought into the mix. Once the consultant – employee relationship is forged, however, it’s hard not to admire the consultant’s fluidity, his or her ability to not care about politics, and what appears to be the genuine enjoyment of the work. A lot of us doing the same kind of work each day or those trying to find a way up the corporate ladder don’t have the luxury of that experience.

I see two main advantages of hiring a consultant:

Efficiency: a consultant is there to do a job, not to schmooze, not to climb. Get in, get out, collect a fee, move on. It’s pure and simple. When an employer is looking to get results quickly a consultant can take them there without the distractions of performance reviews, career development, or training that is required of and expected by full-time employees.

Objectivity: a consultant can take more risk in telling it like it is. Consultants are paid for their expertise. We’re obligated to speak up, make recommendations and find the problems that a full-time employee might be too close to see. We get to do all this without worrying that we’ll commit the dreaded CLM if we say the wrong thing to the wrong person. You hired us to analyze, assess and fix. We’re not afraid to do it.

Putting key initiatives into the hands of someone who is outside your work family can be daunting. There is a degree of letting go and trust that has to be present when hiring consultants. More often than not however, consultants can give you a perspective you can't get on your own. In today's business environment, why not have that advantage?

Putting Childhood Truisms to Work

As any parent of a pre-schooler will tell you there are a set of rules by which their children live inside the classroom and on the playground. Luckily for parents, most children feel very comfortable bringing these rules home with them. How many times has little Timmy, who can’t ever stay quiet, said that he’s just using his words? Classroom rules are there for a reason. Sure they keep order and help teachers manage a herd of 4 year olds but they also create a sense of harmony and community that helps get stuff done.

How then can these rules be applied to the workplace, or better still the project team? As the leader of the team you’re pre-ordained to control and move the effort along. It’s your job to influence, cajole and get people on-board to do your bidding. By applying the fundamentals of school-aged children to your project you can set down a path that runs more smoothly than your average project.

1)   Use Your Words: one of the most important things a Project Manager can do is to communicate. Whether it is to his or her team, the project stakeholders or to senior management. When I’m managing a project, it is my goal to get the message out before someone has to ask me for it. I take pride in being an excellent communicator and having the ability to anticipate someone’s question in advance of them asking it. Communication from the PM out isn’t the only way to use your words. Encourage your team members to do the same. Communication of statuses or feedback on what’s working and what’s not within the context of the team supports bonding and fortifies the group around the common goal of delivering results.

2)   You Get What You Get and You Don’t Get Upset: getting a complex effort off the ground takes a myriad of drivers and doers. What happens when your doers don’t want to do? From the PM perspective, you’ve been dealt an inadequate hand. From the doer's perspective, you’ve gotten a request that you don’t have time for or perhaps you don’t have the interest in. In this scenario, the PM has to be the first to have a good attitude, to not get upset if you will. As the project leader, the PM sets the tone and the best example for how the group will move forward. A PM who throws up his or her hands creates a dynamic of melancholy which will ultimately lead to disinterest on the team’s part. On the flip side, the PM has a chance to flex some empathy skills to encourage support from the defiant doer or has the opportunity to come up with a creative solution for getting the required tasks complete. Going head to head with a member of the team presents challenges and can cast doubt on one’s skills as a leader. Embracing this dynamic and managing conflict in a constructive positive way gives us all a chance to grow as PMs.

3)   Take Turns: differing points of view can help challenge a PM and boost idea generation and creativity. If the PM insists on being the single voice within a work effort he or she is short changed. Soliciting input, or giving others a turn to lead, comment, or provide a perspective helps build energy and enthusiasm around a project. Throughout my years in corporate America, my initial response when someone came into my office asking what should be done about a particular task or challenge was, “Tell me what YOU think we should do first.”

4)   Clean Up After Yourself: since most of us don’t have toys in the workplace, this maxim applies to owning your mistakes, fixing them and learning from them. There are so many points within a project where things can go wrong. Admitting you’ve dropped the ball and offering an answer to how things will get back on track is a brilliant show of competence. We’ve all had the Teflon project team member from time to time. That someone to whom nothing sticks. Ownership and accountability build your credibility and your good-will with colleagues and management, whether you’re the project lead or a supporting player on the team. I can guarantee there’s not one working person today who can say they’ve never screwed up at work. Cleaning up your mess after doing that will help you stand out in a good way.

If only work could be as much fun as going to pre-school or playing on the playground. Melding some of the rules of childhood with day-to-day project management can be almost as entertaining plus it comes without the scraped knees.

Empathy: The Project Management X Factor

What’s the difference between a good product manager and a great one? Project Management at its core is about planning, managing and closing a work effort. It’s all about the execution. Can I get from Point A to Point B on time and within budget? I’ve worked with Project Managers throughout the years that took their role literally. The drive and desire to get to the finish line was paramount. The colleagues or related tasks left in the PM’s wake were not given a second thought. Anecdotally, these driven and task-oriented employees were praised as “good PM’s” with a “but”. They were good BUT no one wanted to work with them. When these highly functioning PMs were assigned to big projects that involved multiple cross-functional stakeholders the announcements were met with silent groans and eye rolls. Observing “good PMs” helped hone my own personal management style. Very early on I learned to value how I got the job done over just getting it done.

The great PM looks beyond the individual tasks and execution components of the project. He or she manages not only the project but also the community involved in delivery. The stressed manager, the overworked technologist, the business analyst who is spread too thinly. Dealing with and respecting the personalities and emotions involved separate the great PMs from the pack. Empathy, simply defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person, is key. Empathy, an element of Emotional Intelligence, is often dismissed because it is confused with sympathy. And who isn’t sympathetic? That is a basic perception we all have as human beings. However, feeling bad for Joe who just got chewed out by his boss is not the same as understanding Joe’s upset.

Practically and tactically speaking, the information we ingest through empathetic interaction makes PM’s better listeners and ultimately more successful. This is so for two main reasons:

• The empathetic ear can garner more support from stakeholders and the individuals required to complete project tasks. A PM without internal support and buy-in from the doers has greater difficulty closing individual tasks per plan.   

• The likability of the empathetic PM boosts the morale of the project team and rallies the doers to get their tasks completed.

Throughout my career I've seen PM's attempt to bring soft skills into their projects with mixed results. In my view, those who believed in the value of relating to their project teams were far more accomplished than those who never looked up from their project plans and opened their ears.